


A Warm Place

by legitimate_salvage (ifinkufreaky)



Category: The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: F/M, Huddling For Warmth, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-08-20 08:13:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8242501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifinkufreaky/pseuds/legitimate_salvage
Summary: Yes, it's a completely overdone trope, but it's my absolute favorite! Plus Nemesis Games gave such a perfect setup. It's almost as if the authors wanted me to think these things. Set just after Amos and Peaches escape the Pit.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the name comes from that dreamy nine inch nails song off the downward spiral, and yes that was the mood of the original idea for the piece. But the story grew a little from there.

The world was dying all around them, but that knowledge could barely even touch Clarissa right now. She welcomed the cold wind and the stinging rain as she and Amos trudged north along the deserted highway. Even the unpleasant sensations on her skin were a sign that she was outside, and free. Today she wasn’t even letting herself wonder if she deserved it. She would be dead if she and Amos hadn’t dragged themselves out of the Pit, and that’s as far as she was going to think about what it meant for her to be out here, gulping down big lungfuls of fresh air on the Earth’s surface. Just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, and enjoying this undeserved chance at freedom.

She would have called the thin light that made its way through the boiling clouds “gloomy” in her previous life. Today it was heavenly, just knowing that it originated at the sun. Though, it was starting to run out. The pale disc wasn’t very close to the horizon, but the clouds were so thick it was barely stronger than a full moon anymore. It wouldn’t be much longer before it was too dark to see where they were going.

“Should we start looking for a place to hole up for the night?” Clarissa called to Amos, who was setting a merciless pace in front of her. Truth was she was exhausted, but Clarissa refused to ask him to slow down. Their journey was going to take a long time, but the more quickly they got to Baltimore, the better.

Amos looked at the sky, then turned back her. She tried to stop her limbs from trembling, but failed. “You’re right,” he said. “Shout out if you notice anything that looks good.” Then he turned and kept walking, at a slightly slower pace.

Everything around them was flattened. They hadn’t traveled far enough to get out of the impact zone. Wherever that third rock had fallen, it had been very, very close to the prison. The best shelter they were able to find was a pile of fallen trees that blocked most of the wind. At least it had stopped raining.

Neither of them knew how to start a fire. Clarissa barked out a laugh. Amos raised an eyebrow at her. “Just thinking about how fire was like, the most primitive human technology. And here we are, in an apocalypse caused by people that literally have spent their whole lives in artificial life support, and you and I don’t even know how to rub two sticks together the right way.”

Amos gave a chuckle. “Back to the beginning for us, I guess.”

In the last dim glow of the choked-out sunset, they cleared debris off two patches of ground and tried to settle in for the night. They had found a cache of packaged snacks that were only somewhat flattened in the rubble of what must have once been a convenience store, and two flannel blankets that weren’t completely soggy. They wolfed down a few bags of brightly-colored corn syrup and starch products, then lay down when they could no longer even see their hands in front of their faces.

It was getting terribly cold. Clarissa thought she had been doing a great job of being tough all day, ignoring the weather and her own physical exhaustion. It hadn’t been too difficult to push her atrophied muscles into maintaining a steady pace. She had been reveling in the freedom and the clarity that was coming to her mind now that the prison’s sedatives were fading from her system. But as she tried to close her eyes and sleep, there were no distractions from the aching in her legs and the cold that seemed to be penetrating right into her bones. Her limbs were trembling, overworked muscles making a valiant effort to generate enough heat to keep all her tissues alive. She wrapped the thin blanket around herself more tightly, but the trembling started spreading to her jaw, setting her teeth to an audible clattering. She pressed them together in a sudden spurt of shame. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t like the idea of Amos hearing, and knowing she was shivering out of control. Maybe it was because he had already done so much for her; she didn’t want him doing something chivalrous like giving her his blanket.

Then she almost laughed at the thought of Amos Burton being chivalrous. Why had she thought of that? Maybe she was getting delirious, some kind of withdrawal from the drugs that had been dripping steadily into her bloodstream for the past five years. Either way, she was very conscious that Amos was only trapped in this hell on Earth right now because of _her_. Because he had decided for unknown reasons to show an afternoon of compassion and kindness to a girl who didn’t deserve it. She realized her teeth were chattering again.

“You trying to chop down some trees over there?” she heard Amos’ voice call from the pitch dark.

Clarissa responded with a weak laugh, tried to burrow harder into the unyielding ground. “Not very successfully,” she joked back.

She heard Amos shift in his blanket. “Okay I know how this is gonna sound, but I don’t mean it that way. Why don’t you get over here, Peaches, let me warm you up. You don’t have enough meat left on your bones to handle this cold.”

Clarissa’s first impulse was to say no, martyr it out. But the image of his warm body curling around hers went straight to her reptile brain and there was no hesitation in her limbs as she shot up and took the few steps separating them in the dark. She knelt down when she thought she was close and reached out to find Amos in the pure black of the clouded night. Her hand hit his knee and she crawled quickly up by his side, blanket still wrapped over her shoulders. She lay down a few inches away, feeling tentative about imposing on his space. His arms came out to receive her, however, and he pulled her right in against his body.

Amos took a moment to arrange their blankets to cover them without gaps, then began rubbing her back and arms briskly and efficiently. His hands felt burning hot to her, even through the paper-thin material of the hospital gown that was the only clothing she had ever needed in the Pit. She burrowed into his chest and let his warmth seep into her face. The friction of his hands began to slow the shivering of her body. He curled over her to reach down and tend to her legs, respectfully gliding down only the outer edge of her hip as he did. She pulled her right leg up over him so he could more easily reach the big muscles of her thigh and increase the blood flow there.

Her body unconsciously sought the warmth of his. She was pressing herself into him, straining to get closer, wrapping her upper leg around him tightly. Every instinct was telling her to cling to him. But after her shivering stopped, she started to become embarrassingly conscious of the intimacy of their bodies. It felt exactly the same as the way she might embrace a lover just before she asked him to plunge inside her.

Clarissa relaxed her grip on Amos and turned in his arms, pushing away the sexual images suddenly crowding her brain. His chest was blissfully warm against her back, and his upper arm pillowed her head. She released a long breath and gave herself over to sleep.

*****

The next day they resumed their dogged pace, headed steadily north along mostly-abandoned roads. They were clearly moving away from the center of impact, signs of damage lessening in the landscape as they passed. Around here the stronger trees and a handful of gutted-out building were still standing. They came across fellow survivors on occasion, faces slack with loss and shock. Amos and Clarissa both avoided engaging them by silent agreement.

There was no priority greater than putting one foot in front of the other, to get to Baltimore as quickly as possible before Clarissa’s strength really gave out or conditions got worse. They stopped to rest as little as Amos judged she could get away with. Occasionally one of her atrophied muscles would cramp under the unaccustomed activity and they would be forced to halt while she stretched it out. Clarissa found yet another strange reason to be grateful that her paranoid father had pushed her so hard to train her body in her former life; she was drawing on all the discipline she had gained in those endless hours in the gym and at the dojo. And she still couldn’t figure out why she didn’t want to appear weak in front of Amos.

She realized she was staring at his hands again, watching him sort through the wreckage of a fuel station by the road while she rested her legs. All day she had been fixating on the latent power in the grip of his fingers, the movements of his arms as he lifted rubble or gestured as he spoke to her. She was trying very hard to keep her thoughts appropriate, but she just kept going back to the feel of those hands all over her last night. She flushed, remembering their bodies pressed together in the night, then sighed and shook her head.

“You ok, Peaches?” Amos asked, pausing in his work.

She suppressed an embarrassed laugh and nodded, got up to help. The thoughts were crazy. This was not the time or place to start a romance, and Amos was not the guy to do it with. Except… except no one had laid a friendly hand on her in five years. She was realizing how much she had withdrawn from all her senses in that grey and dingy prison, every sight, smell and feel generally unpleasant. Now even this cloudy, post-tsunami landscape and taciturn, vaguely anti-social companion were bringing her body back to life.

And of course, she did have good reasons to be fixating on Amos. She had thought of him often in her confinement; the last human being that had ever looked at her with respect, rather than open disgust or pity. When she wasn’t too groggy or depressed to feel like touching herself during those years in the Pit, Amos had often ended up in a starring role in her wandering fantasies, probably for that reason. He was the only man she could believably imagine looking at her with love.

But now she was free and he was standing right in front of her, and all she felt was embarrassed. This man was not exactly the fantasy that she had built up over the years. His face was mostly expressionless; not exactly cold, but it did not hold the warmth her imagination had given it. His eyes fell on her only when they needed to, and at those timesshe could see him calculating her physical status: remaining strength, core body temperature. Still, when she could summon the energy to come up with a joke, his face would crease in a friendly smile, and suddenly she felt like she had the strength to go ten more miles. He gave her encouraging touches throughout the day, and when he reached out to steady her it felt like his hands lingered a moment longer than necessary.

That night they decided to camp out in an abandoned home that was only halfway demolished by the elements, and thankfully absent any corpses to evict. There was one bed left that wasn’t soaked by the whipping rain, in a room that still had three standing walls. Clarissa felt inexplicably awkward about the assumption that they would both be sleeping in it. They sat together in silence and ate the food they had scavenged that day. The facts were the same as last night; she was already starting to shiver. Of course she needed Amos’ body heat. But there was a difference between accepting his unexpected offer last night, and trying to make conversation knowing they were about to end up in bed together now.

Clarissa looked over at Amos, chewing on a cookie placidly and staring out at the horizon. He didn’t seem to be feeling awkward at all. Clarissa wasn’t sure if she had ever seen him awkward, or nervous, or tentative… except for maybe when he had reached out and taken her hand at her bedside in the Pit. His eyes had widened with that face he made when he was being careful in a delicate task, and the rhythm of his words had slowed for a moment. Clarissa felt a rush of tenderness at the memory.

“Don’t think anyone’ll be moving around much out there after the light’s gone,” Amos said, eyes darting between ruined buildings and collapsed trees. It was probably a pretty nice little town, once. “Still, I’m gonna put some of that brush over by the door, and the opening in the wall here. That way if anyone tries to get in, we’ll hear them.” Clarissa just stared as Amos got up and started his task. It was smart. She wondered if she would have thought to be prepared for intruders if she were on her own.

If she were on her own, she’d have suffocated in her cell in the Pit by now. Clarissa gathered up what dry linens she could find and made their bed, tried to ignore the rushing excitement at the thought. _Their_ bed. When she had layered and straightened the blankets to her liking, she went out to help Amos drag tree branches filled with rustly leaves. The night was already turning bitter cold. Even with the hard work, she felt the chill creeping into her arms, the back of her neck. The long coat they had found for her today wasn’t enough. Her neglected body didn’t have enough insulation to regulate her anymore.

When Amos judged that their task was finished, they went back to the most sheltered corner of the house, where they had dragged the bed. Clarissa thought she could see Amos’ breath as he sat down on the edge and took his boots off. It was hard to tell in the rapidly-fading light. She waited until he laid down and held the covers up for her before she shed her own coat and shoes; she was so cold she almost forgot to feel shy stripping back down to the thin prison gown and climbing in beside him. She settled in with her back to him; she was afraid of what her brain might do to her if they were face to face again.

“You’re ice cold, Peaches,” Amos exclaimed when her legs touched his; he rolled his body into her and wrapped his big arm over her torso, hand cupping her shoulder. He was blissfully, maddeningly warm.

Clarissa exhaled slowly and tried to focus only on the need to sleep. She found to her dismay that she was feeling more awake than she had in years. Without the drip of mandatory sedation drugs, perhaps her body didn’t know how to fall asleep on its own any more. She was hyper aware of every sound in the deserted landscape around them. Her nose was full of the smells of wet leaves, recently broken lumber and drywall, and the musky sweat of the man beside her. She still could barely believe she was here with him; she had counted Amos among the last of the people she would ever see again.

She shifted against him, unable to stop her body from burrowing for warmth, and her bottom came in contact with an unmistakable hardness. Amos acknowledged it immediately. “Sorry about that. Like I said last night, sleeping like this wasn’t an excuse to put my hands on you. Just couldn’t seem to stop the hard-on. Don’t worry about it, get some rest.” He shifted so she could no longer feel him and patted her arm in an empty reassuring gesture.

Clarissa let out a long breath. She felt something that was both cold and warm spiraling through the center of herself in response to his erection, arousal and nervousness and desire and sadness all welling up together. It was entirely impossible to ignore. She rolled onto her back, found Amos’ hand. She pulled it up underneath her medical gown, guiding him to her belly. All she knew for certain was that she wanted his touch on her skin. She pressed his warm hand right against her navel, and just breathed.

Amos was silent, motionless, letting his fingers relax completely. Letting her know she was in control. Clarissa felt herself coming together, becoming more grounded, more real under the stabilizing stimulus of a human touch here at the center of her body. His touch. She forced herself to breathe slowly and evenly, though her pulse was starting to race. She was ready to confess. “I want you to touch me, Amos. Everywhere. I didn’t think anyone would ever touch me again.”

She heard nothing but his quiet breathing for a moment, slightly heavier than it was a moment ago. She wished there was even a little light, so she might be able to see something in the expression on his face. Then she remembered Amos hardly ever showed anything that way. Nor through his words. But his hand started to move. Slowly, carefully, just making small circles over her belly. Her own hands were still pressing down on his, like he might fly away if she let him go. She released her pressure slowly, pushing him ever so slightly outward as she did, encouraging him to explore. He ran his palm down over her ribs, curled his fingers around her waist, then dragged slow figure eights over her belly. Clarissa started to feel warm and tingly all over. It almost wasn’t even a sexual feeling; too full of deep joy and long-awaited comforting. Amos slid his hand up her chest, carefully staying between her breasts, and then paused on her sternum while his fingers played over her collarbone. He caressed her like she was some beautiful, breakable sculpture; touched her like he had been dying to get the chance and now he was going to savor it.

Amos drew Clarissa’s hair off her neck with gentle fingertips and then lifted her head to slide his other arm underneath it. His fingers ghosted over her cheek, then he ran his thumb over her bottom lip and she sighed. He played with her jawline for a while, then drew his fingers lightly down her throat and explored over her shoulder, down her arm. Clarissa felt a moment of self-consciousness for her atrophied body; she must be as sexually attractive as a bag of sticks right now. But Amos was touching her like she was holy and that was good enough for now.

He was drawing his palm in circles over her belly again. The side of his thumb brushed the bottom of her breast, and a more erotic need awakened in her. So far Amos had been incredibly respectful, but there were certain places she was starting to hope he wouldn’t avoid indefinitely. Her breath started to quicken as his hand ran up her ribs, paused just below the swell of her breast. She felt her nipples harden in anticipation of him. “Here, too?” he breathed in her ear.

“Yes,” Clarissa whispered with joy, and his hand opened to slide eagerly over the peak. Then he paused a moment, cupping her in his palm. It felt like they were both appreciating that this moment was the turning point, they were now definitely connecting sexually here in the dark. Then his grip closed, twisted in a kneading caress and Clarissa’s breath caught, came out in a tiny little whimper as his thumb brushed across her nipple. He teased her a little, squeezing and pulling at the sensitive flesh. He must have liked the way her body twisted in response, because he made an appreciative noise in his throat and started teasing her more than just a little. She burrowed her head into his shoulder and tried to hold still as his fingers made her squirm and sigh. He stroked her hair with his other hand, like he was comforting her.

Just as she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, Amos’ hand relaxed, open palm stroking her reverently again. Clarissa fought to catch her breath. She wasn’t cold anymore. She rolled her body under his exploring hand. There was a rushing in her ears and a sense of electricity all around them. She had jumped into an oasis in the center of the desert. Everything was perfect.

Amos’ hand started a slow slide down her hip, swirling over the top of her thigh and returning to her belly, repeated the move on the other side. Everything was not perfect. She needed him in that spot he was deliberately avoiding, that whole neglected world between her legs. His hand crept down the center of her belly, past her navel, stopped just as his fingers brushed the curls on her mound. “Do you want me to touch you there, too?” he asked again. Her assent came out in a low moaning “please.” He resumed his steady course, sliding his palm over her pubic bone and then coming to rest. He let his hot hand lay lightly over all the sensitive flesh between her legs, letting her get used to the intimacy of his touch. She realized her breaths were coming so quickly he might have thought she was afraid.

It wasn’t fear Clarissa felt, but it was something almost as overwhelming. She hadn’t been this keyed up and in suspense over sharing herself since her first time with a man. It had just been so long, and she had thought she had already had her last time, in some barely-appreciated tryst before she changed her identity and began that crazed quest for vengeance that landed her with a life sentence, no chance of parole.

Amos waited for Clarissa’s breathing to slow before he started moving again, rocking the heel of his hand against her gently, stroking the outside of her labia with gentle fingers. Clarissa made an encouraging noise and snuggled her forehead against his chest. He drew one finger across the wetness between those lips, and she spread her legs to receive him. He stroked his finger along her without entering, then rolled it against her clit. Clarissa moaned into his chest and he stayed there, sending deep pleasurable pulses through her core. He tried out several angles before finding the one that felt best to her, which she guided along with an assortment of sighs and soft groans. Then he settled into a steady rhythm, rocking his finger over her clit untiringly. She felt that swirling energy inside her coiling toward climax, but she wanted something more.

Clarissa arched her back, thrust herself up into his hand, trying to remember how to use words in this midst of all these overwhelming sensations. Amos’ finger stopped, slid down her folds. “Do you want me inside?” he asked.

“Oh God yes,” she said, writhing in anticipation. His fingertips swirled in the wetness escaping her labia, then she felt him slide one in. It was a sensation both foreign and welcome, to be penetrated by another person after so many years alone. He moved slowly, letting her relax as he dipped in and out. When she started bucking against him, he added another finger, then started moving more forcefully. His big hand stretched her where she thought she’d only ever feel her own fingers again. And it wasn’t just loneliness fulfilled that was bringing tears to her eyes; those fingers belonged to _him_ , the last person to ever treat her like a human being. Amos, who gave her something to hold on to during the long journey back to Earth, who gave her days dignity and meaning when she was sure that she deserved neither. He was curling his fingers against her g-spot and enthusiastically fucking her with his hand now, and her mind kept repeating _he came back for me, he came back for me._

She came, holding her breath to keep from crying out into the lonely night. Her whole body shuddered with the force of it. Amos’ upper arm cradled her as she rode out the ecstasy that seemed to keep coming forever, his lower hand slowing at the same pace she did, not withdrawing from her until she finally sighed and relaxed completely. He started stroking her hair again as Clarissa slowly came back to reality. She rolled her face into him, slid her hand down his belly toward the erection she knew was still waiting for her.

He trapped her hand with surprising force. “Nah, Peaches, you don’t have to do that,” he said.

“I want to,” she whispered.

“Don’t,” he replied, a trace of irritation in his voice. He took her hand firmly and tucked it up against her chest as he wrapped his arms around her. “Just go to sleep now.”

Clarissa was confused, and a little hurt, but most of all she wanted to respect his boundary. She curled her body into his. She did finally feel like sleep was going to come for her soon. “Thank you,” she breathed into his chest.

He tightened his arms around her in reply.


	2. Chapter 2

When Clarissa was a child, the Mao family had a dog, a little Pomeranian named Bijou. The beloved pet had been cremated long ago, but currently she was lost in the air ducts on the _Seung Un_ and Clarissa was searching desperately for her. She had to save her soon, but she couldn’t remember why. Other than knowing it was all her fault somehow. She also wasn’t sure why she kept calling out “Peaches,” like that was the dog’s name.

She recognized she was dreaming when the air vent she was crawling through emptied onto her college boyfriend’s yacht; Ren was on the deck with his arms stretched wide to embrace her. It all crumbled away as she became conscious of the position of her limbs in bed. Just dreaming. The sick anxiety of the search for her puppy faded. Ren. The _Seung Un_. The explosion, the deaths. She did that. The rush of guilt flowed through her, settled into its familiar coil around her heart; right on time. Every morning was the same.

A moment later she was noticing humid air on her face and a warm body at her back. This was not the same.

She recalled that if she opened her eyes she would see a crumbling room with only three standing walls, littered with debris. Someone had dropped a few rocks from orbit and now everything on Earth was fucked. She remembered now. But she was free; she’d been sprung from her prison cell. The warm body at her back belonged to Amos Burton. Who had come back for her.

Who last night had his hands everywhere, had made her come harder than anything she could compare it to in recent memory. Her body awoke and suddenly that piece of information seemed more important, or at least much more pleasant to think about, than any of the other stuff.

It had been incredibly erotic, just his hand in the dark. But also so comforting, and safe... And he hadn’t even let her touch him in return. Clarissa felt her heart start to race as she contemplated offering that again. Maybe he refused her last night because he had just been making sure she got the rest she so desperately needed. She shifted, turning her head back towards him.

As she stirred, Amos rolled to face her. “You up?” he asked.

Clarissa softened her face as he met her eyes, hoping her pale and exhausted body looked at least a little bit seductive.

Amos looked at her for only a second, then turned his gaze up to the sky, through the missing wall of the house that had sheltered them last night. “We should be getting on the road then,” he announced. He extricated himself from their warm little nest and sat down at the edge of the bed to put his boots on without a backwards glance.

Clarissa stared at his back, less than a foot from her face, clutching the blankets around herself to stop the cold air from rushing in. She considered reaching out, stroking his back, maybe coaxing him back into bed. She didn’t know why Amos hadn’t let her touch him last night, but she knew she wanted to try again. If he wanted her to. Did he want her to?

Amos finished with his boots and stood up, started rummaging through their supplies. She watched him peel open an energy bar, then finally he turned and looked at her, still buried under the covers. “Sleeping in today, little tomato?”

Clarissa smiled weakly at the bizarre nickname, trying to think of something to say, some way to acknowledge last night and find out what he thought about it. Nothing came to her, so she swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I was just holding onto the warmth as long as I could,” she said, feeling around with her bare feet for her shoes.

“You just need to get your blood moving. We’ve got a lot of ground left to cover,” Amos said, scanning the horizon again.

It was like last night hadn’t happened. Clarissa almost wondered if she had dreamed it. As they packed up, Amos’ cool gaze slid over her the same way it had since this disaster started, the same way it passed over their scavenged provisions as he rolled them back up into their warmest blankets. Assessing status, usefulness, potential problems. She swallowed against a lump forming in her throat and threw her coat around her shoulders.

It wasn’t like she was in love with Amos. At least, the emotions crowding around her airway bore little resemblance to the soft pining and flattered flutters of the heart that she remembered from her youth, when she had had time for things like relationships. If anything she was just… a little insulted, that they could have shared something like last night and have it change nothing about how he looked at her the next day. Did he feel nothing at all? She was feeling something. She just wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it was better just to not think about it.

*****

Clarissa thought about it all day anyway. She stared at his back as Amos trudged up the deserted road in front of her, watching the muscles of his shoulders roll under his tight coveralls. She looked at his ass, too, but the rhythmic clenching of his gluts as he walked only led her to imagine too vividly the way those muscles might contract if he bent her over the highway median and started fucking her right there. And thoughts like that made her knees a little too weak to keep hiking at Amos’ impatient pace. Looking at his shoulders was safer.

Now that she’d had a taste of him, Clarissa wanted a lot more. But as the morning hours stretched in silence, she worried he wasn’t feeling the same. And that there might even be something wrong between them now. She knew she wasn’t even trying to be as chatty as she had been the last few days, but neither was he. The entertaining stories with the surprising punchlines were absent today; Amos looked over his shoulder only occasionally, seemed to be just checking that she was keeping up. At least the rain had stopped, though the sky was still dark as twilight.

He finally gave her some acknowledgement of their tryst while they breaking for lunch. They had been following a highway that veered away from the coastline, and therefore skipped the major metropolitan areas. They found a spot to rest in a little grove of evergreens, on a ridge above the road. Amos had picked it so he could keep watch on the highway while they ate, but the cover of greenery provided by the trees was also the closest thing to beautiful Clarissa had seen since they emerged from the Pit.

As Amos distributed this meal’s selection of their meager provisions, Clarissa decided to break the ice that had settled over their sparse conversation this morning. She tried teasing him about not washing up before handling her food. “I don’t know where those hands have been,” she quipped.

“Pretty sure you do,” Amos countered with a playful leer in his eyes.

So she hadn’t made it up; last night happened, and he remembered it. That was something. If he was willing to make jokes about it, maybe he didn’t regret it. Clarissa spent almost the entirety of their lunch trying to decide what else to say. Amos kept his eyes on the road below them, for the most part, no particular expression on his face.

They had a disposable water bottle they had found on the first day, that they refilled every chance they could find. After the meal, Amos took a big swig and then silently offered it to Clarissa. She stepped over to him, taking the bottle from his outstretched hand. She stood there holding it, forgotten as soon as he let it go. Finally she just said it. “Amos, why didn’t you let me touch you last night?”

“Didn’t want to take advantage,” he said matter-of-factly, without looking up from the supplies he was rolling back up in the blanket.

“Take advantage?” Clarissa repeated. “Amos, you had your hands all over me.”

“Yeah, because you asked me to,” he replied, smiling up at her now. “I know you’ve been pretty fucking lonely.” He tied off the roll and stood. “I’m happy to help, I get it,” he explained. “But that doesn’t mean I need you to do anything for me, something you might regret later. That’s how I mean that I don’t want to take advantage.”

So he was just touching her out of pity last night. Clarissa’s mouth twisted. “You don’t want me,” she said heavily, afraid to hear the answer but needing it.

“Oh fuck no. You’re sexy as hell, Peaches. I want to do some things to you that you’ve probably never even heard of.” He flashed her a quick smile. “That’s not what this is about. I’m just trying to be a good guy.”

“Amos. I’m not just using you to get off.”

“But if that’s all you want, I’m completely ok with that,” he interrupted. “I can make you come every night if that’s what you need. You’ve got a lot of time to make up for.”

She blushed. “You’re not listening. I want…” she shook her head, struggling to find the right words, “... _you_.” She was afraid of how the next part would sound, but she forged on anyway. “I… I thought about you a lot. While I was in the Pit.” His face was hardening. He didn’t want to hear about emotional attachments. She pressed on anyway; whether stubbornness or bravery, she had to say it.  “You were the last person to ever be kind to me. The only person to know-“ she faltered for a moment. “To know what I’d done, and still treat me like I was worth anything.” She stopped there, looked at the ground. It had been a long time since she herself had believed she was worth anything.

“Everyone’s done things they’re not proud of,” Amos offered. He stepped closer; she could feel him looming over her but she couldn’t look up.

“I tried to kill your people,” she whispered.

“And if you tried it again, I’d kill you myself. But I don’t think you would, try to hurt any of us again.”

Clarissa looked at him for a moment. He really would kill her, even now, without hesitation. Being so close to a man who would do that was oddly erotic, probably because it would be only what she deserved. “No… no, I wouldn't,” she answered his unspoken question. “That part of me is gone.” Her eyes returned to the ground.

There wasn’t much left of her, truth be told. She hadn’t really needed to be much of a person when all she had ahead of her was a sedated life in a gray box. Now it felt like some new self was kindling in the past few days, in this unexpected freedom, and last night under Amos’ caring hand. But she didn’t know who this new Clarissa was, yet, or if she actually deserved to ask for anything from him.

“Then we’re all good, Peaches.” She could hear his wide smile in his voice. “I’m not the kind to judge. I know I’ve got no ground to stand on when it comes to things like murder.” He shrugged. “You keep on living, you try to make better choices next time.”

She looked up at him sharply at the word ‘murder.’ He certainly seemed capable of any type of violence, but she knew next to nothing about the details of his past. Just the notes she had compiled in her research on the _Rocinante_ and its crew, in that other life when she was proud to be called Clarissa Melpomene Mao. She wasn’t going to ask him about it; he seemed like a good person now. Which was something she only barely dared hope she might achieve in her own future. If she even had one.

“I’m just living in the moment, Amos,” she said, struggling to regain the thread of the conversation, take it away from things she didn’t want to think about. Had already thought about for lifetimes, with no conclusion or solace. “You’re trying to save me from regretting something? All I have are regrets,” she added with a bitter laugh. “I’m on borrowed time right now, and there’s only one bright spot in this hellscape, and that’s you. I highly doubt I will ever regret taking advantage of this chance.”

She looked up at him then, smiling out of the corner of her mouth. “A chance for you to take advantage of me, is what I’m saying. With my full support and consent.” She took another step into his space. She had to stretch her throat to look up at him, this close. “If it’s not just pity, or generosity on your part. _If_ you actually want me.” She still didn’t feel confident that he felt anything for her, but now she refused to shy away.

They were only inches apart. Clarissa stared at him, chin up, and it felt like forever that Amos just studied her face. It took everything she had to stand, emotionally naked, and just wait for his reaction. She realized with slight horror that her whole body had started trembling.

“Peaches, I been trying not to think about banging you since I hacked that ankle monitor,” he said. There was an intensity in his gaze that looked like desire, but he didn’t move to touch her.

Clarissa reached one hand slowly up toward his face, as carefully as she would approach a wild animal. She traced her fingertips down the stubble on his cheek and he let her, still motionless as he watched her draw her body ever nearer. Her breaths were starting to come in big gulps; he wasn’t doing much to reassure her but he wasn’t stopping her anymore and she could see his muscles coiling now, barely holding himself back from her.

She put her other palm on his chest, still tracing his jawline with her fingers. She could feel his breaths coming faster too. She believed it now, that he wanted her. The sense of power that always came with that knowledge was like a rush of party drugs, or the first few seconds of her implants. In a moment, she’d unlock this cage he was keeping himself in, convince him that she wanted that desire of his let loose all over her body.

She dragged her fingers back up his cheekbone, lifting her face even closer. She had to push into him, coming up on her tiptoes, to brush her lips across his. She wavered just a little and his hands came up to steady her at the hips. She pulled back just far enough to look him in the eyes; he hadn’t kissed her back. His grip tightened around her waist, however.

“You sure?” Amos asked one last time.

She bit her lip and nodded, already beyond forming clever words. She poured all her eagerness into her eyes and pushed up on her toes for another kiss. This time Amos parted his lips to welcome her. He bent toward her as she pressed her tongue into his mouth, threw her arms around his neck and closed the space between their bodies. Amos pulled her into him and returned her kiss with relish. The trembling in her limbs was turning into buzzing.

He pulled his face back after a few seconds, arms still around her. “Just don’t do anything stupid like falling in love with me,” he said seriously. “I’m warning you now, Peaches, that never ends well.”

Clarissa was speechless for a moment; there was a lot to parse there. She knew she’d be agonizing over every word later. But for now, she deflected with a joke. It wasn’t enough to change her mind. “You think pretty highly of yourself, huh? Women just fall for you left and right?”

Amos grinned back at her. “My charm can be hard to resist.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I’ll consider myself warned. But all I can think about right now is how quickly I can get you inside me.”

“Is that right?” Amos asked with a smirk as he bent down to kiss her again. He buried one hand in her hair and ran the other down around her ass, squeezing possessively. Clarissa sighed and nipped playfully at his lip as she went for his zipper. Her last comment was serious. She was itching to get her skin against his, damn the cold, damn the fact that it was the middle of the day in the middle of nowhere. Clarissa needed him _now_.

Amos was not a gentle lover. He had been so careful with her last night. But now that he had permission to take his own pleasure from her, he was all grasping hands, love bites, and insistent pushes and pulls showing her what he wanted. They ended up on the ground behind a moderate screen of brush under the pines, Clarissa flat on her back on top of the scavenged coat she had been wearing. She had no idea where her prison-issued underwear had landed after Amos reached down and started warming her up.

She had clawed his shirt off of him, and now Amos’ powerful chest was filling most of her field of vision. He was covered in tattoos and serious-looking scars. It was not the kind of body Clarissa Melpomene Mao would ever have found herself under, before all this. But now she was whimpering and burning up inside, running her tongue over white scar tissue and begging wordlessly to be annihilated by this man.

He tugged her prison gown up and off her roughly. The cold air hardened her nipples so quickly it was almost painful. She reveled in the feeling as she watched Amos fumble his boots off; her hands were pushing the rest of his clothes down his hips before he even finished.

Finally, Clarissa claimed her prize. As she slid Amos’ waistband off, his erection sprang free, thick and pink and with a pearly bead of pre-come already at the tip. She wrapped her hand around it as Amos kicked off his clothes. She had almost forgotten what the velvety soft skin of a cock felt like. She reacquainted herself as she stroked him softly up and down. She glanced up once; Amos had his eyes closed and was groaning appreciatively.

With their clothes off in the woods, Clarissa imagined they were just a nameless woman and a mysterious man. Nothing to identify their pasts or their futures; they could be anyone. No one. Just two people making the most primal and natural of connections. She laid back onto the earth.

“You wanna come first?” Amos asked, pausing as he lined himself up with her.

She thought about sending his mouth down between her thighs, but that just didn’t seem satisfying. “No, Amos,” she shook her head, “I need you to take me right now.” It wasn’t a guaranteed orgasm but it was the only thing that she wanted in this moment.

He checked her with a swirling finger anyway; the quick contact was a tease that made her shudder. “You ain’t kidding, Peaches,” he chuckled under his breath. “You are really fucking wet for me.”

She was embarrassed at his vulgarity for just a moment, then the head of his cock was bumping against her and she forgot everything else. “Yessss…” she hissed through clenched teeth, and then he was pressing steadily into her, filling her so much better than his fingers had the night before. Amos was groaning as he held his body up on hands grounded on either side of her shoulders, chest hovering over her as he let his hips sink down steadily.

“You feel so fucking good,” he moaned, eyes pressed shut. “So fucking tight.”

“Well, it has been a while,” Clarissa responded, feeling suddenly cheeky. “You might have to stretch me out again.” She could talk dirty, too.

Amos groaned at those words and collapsed onto his elbows, wrapping his hands around her shoulders and starting to pump into her eagerly. It was everything Clarissa had been craving, and maybe a little more. Her nerve endings were being assaulted with unaccustomed sensations. She wrapped her legs around his waist and cried out as Amos penetrated to a depth she had forgotten even how to imagine. Nothing existed now but the weight of his body, the feeling of his cock pounding her into the cold ground, and his hot breath on her face. The pleasure was a burning, living thing that entirely possessed her body.

Pleasure was too soft a word for it. As Amos really cut loose, taking her exactly how he wanted, he reached that point of intensity she loved, when the pressure and friction approached the threshold of pain. When she lost control of her face and was no longer deciding what kind of noises were being dragged out of her throat. It was an intensity she was always hoping a new lover could reach; maybe Amos was more her type than she thought.

Clarissa’s moans were turning into wails as Amos drove into her, relentless. He stopped abruptly. “Shhh, Peaches, not so loud. We don’t need to attract any attention.”

He was right, anyone could be out here. Clarissa tried to be quiet, bit her lip and held her breath, but as the movement of his hips resumed she soon forgot to keep herself silent again. She realized her mistake when Amos’ callused hand covered her mouth. He didn’t say anything this time, just muffled her voice with his palm and fucked her harder. Clarissa came screaming into his flesh as he held her down, and he didn’t relent until she was sobbing.

He stayed inside her and watched her face as she calmed. When she shifted, Clarissa realized he was still hard. “Oh, you didn’t…?”

Amos shook his head. “Seemed like you needed a break though.”

She had. A good orgasm always left her incredibly sensitive for the next minute or two. She smirked at him through her blissful haze. “Still being the gentleman.”

“That not how you want it?” he asked.

Clarissa gave him an enigmatic shrug.

“I don’t have to be nice,” Amos said, pulling out of her unexpectedly and sitting back on his heels. “Flip over. Hands and knees.”

He was still so hard. The sight of his swollen cock had Clarissa tingling with a fresh burst of arousal. She tried to look coquettish as she rolled over, tossing her head and glancing back over her shoulder through unruly strands of hair. In the back of her mind she wondered if she had any kind of ass left to entice him with, but Amos ran his hand across her hips with an appreciative look. Then he was leaning forward and pressing himself into her again. She watched his eyes lose focus and his mouth drop open, then she closed her eyes and focused on bracing herself against his renewed thrusts.

It felt even deeper this way. His pace was punishing and she had very little control. Clarissa collapsed to her elbows, resting her head on her forearms and giving herself over to the sensations. She started to feel like she was getting lost, spiraling out of her body and away from the intensity.

“Look at me,” she said to Amos, turning to hold his gaze through her hair again.

Amos’ eyes focused on her face, but they had that distant cast that men got when they were really just thinking about their own pleasure.

“ _Look_ at me,” Clarissa repeated. She didn’t want to be just a woman and a man anymore; she wanted to be Clarissa and Amos. But something told her not to say his name.

His gaze softened, focused on the details of her face. Now she was starting to feel seen. Amos was still pumping into her, both hands on her hips, but his eyes were studying hers, and a warmth finally started creeping into them; that warmth she had imagined in those lonely nights in the Pit. She saw his orgasm starting, eyes widening like he was surprised by it. His brows creased with the effort to keep his eyelids open as the pleasure washed over him, and Clarissa felt an answering warmth spread across her chest and down through her core, to see Amos so overcome. He held himself buried inside her as he rode out the last spasms of his orgasm. She realized they were both holding their breaths.

She closed her eyes first, giving him permission to sigh and sag against her upturned hips. A moment later he was pulling out of her. As she curled onto her side she noticed he was standing up. “Hold me for a minute,” she requested. Her voice sounded sleepier than she expected.

Clarissa didn’t know who taught Amos how to treat a lover; later she’d have some words but right now she didn’t even care. She was going to teach him how she wanted to be treated, and that was all that really mattered. She settled into his embrace as Amos lay back down beside her. They couldn’t stay this way for long, but Clarissa needed one last connection, skin on skin, as her endorphins settled down.

“Aren’t you cold, Peaches?” Amos asked, tightening his grip around her.

“Warmest I’ve been in years,” she replied.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments give me life, let me know what you thought!


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